Sunday, January 25, 2009

Australian government say identical twins are 'not related'

A Western Australian woman has been told by Australian authorities that she's not related to her identical twin sister.

Rosabelle Glasby says she is ``shocked and saddened'' she cannot bring her sister into the country to live because the Department of Immigration and Citizenship does not consider the pair to be related.

Adopted by different families shortly after their birth in Malaysia, Mrs Glasby and Dorothy Loader were separated for almost 50 years before finally meeting last September. But now Mrs Glasby, from Margaret River, is facing an uphill battle to be permanently reunited with her twin, who lives in Malaysia.

In a letter to Mrs Glasby last month, DIAC state director Paul Farrell explained that despite the circumstances, the present laws meant Ms Loader would not be eligible for family migration.

``Under Migration Law where the legal relationship between a child and his/her birth parents has been severed by adoption, the legal relationship between the child and his/her birth siblings is also severed,'' he said. ``It therefore does not appear that your twin sister would be eligible for a permanent visa under the Family Stream of the Migration Program.''

Mrs Glasby said she was heartbroken that her long-lost twin did not qualify as family. ``We're identical twin sisters _ we're the same egg,'' she said. ``Just because we got adopted into different families they say they don't consider us related. It's hard to get anyone more related to me.''